


Called Home

by Bianca MarOu (glazedmacguffin)



Series: Unaccounted For: Tales of Lore [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-18
Updated: 2010-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-07 08:46:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glazedmacguffin/pseuds/Bianca%20MarOu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another super short snippet.  After Lore deals with the Pakleds, he gets a signal from his father which his hopelessly damaged net has difficulty interpretting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Called Home

Bergnendul and Hopmikbud. Those turned out to be the names of the two Pakled that he had disposed of. Lore looked with amusement at the nametag on the locker as he fastened the belt around the too large shirt as tightly as it would go. Not that he could tell which name belonged to which very deceased pile of filth. Nor did he care, either.

He wrinkled his nose as he smelled the arm of the coarse fabric. It was foul to humans, but it was absolutely atrocious to him. The Pakleds very seriously needed to better maintain their hygiene; though he believed he had cured them of that necessity. He would have to find the cleaning cycle aboard the ship and run through it... and repair it if it wasn't working. About half of this vessel was random bits and pieces the two had scrounged secondhand from other ships; and quite a bit of it was broken completely or malfunctioning in some way.

Lore stepped over the dead, obese forms sprawled in the floor of the med-lab. He caught the physicians chair as he walked by it with his hand and spun, leaving it to turn slowly in his wake as he headed out into the main corridor. Overhead lights flickered in some portions, and the grated, subpar walkway was relatively low-lit anyway. He eyed those permeated walls as he walked by, catching glimpses in flickering of flashes of the tubing and wires beneath.

Fondly, for a moment, he thought the ship had potential. Like him, it was spare parts slapped together in a work of art. With a little fixing up, he could make this suit him quite nicely.

_"No you can't, Lore. You can't even fix yourself."_

He turned quickly, a jerk faster than any human could manage, and there for a moment he saw the image of Dr. Soong. Though not the aging scientist that he knew; the image he was constructed from. Youthful, and oddly dressed as a blacksmith. A blip in the brightness of flickering lights.

His face twitched, and he almost reached to touch the flinching muscle. But instead, his hand hovered unsteadily. _He_ hovered unsteadily. "What is this?" he said in a low voice. "This what you're up to, _Often Wrong_? Leaving bits of yourself in your son's head?... But then I'm not really your son, am I?"

Lore turned back, heading down the corridor toward the bridge. He stalled when he heard that voice again, gold eyes staring dryly forward.

_"Of course you are, Lore. You're important to me! You were a work of art."_

He didn't bother to turn this time, instead he rolled his eyes and smiled wryly. "So you said, dear Father. So you said." His boots grated against the metal again as he strode forward. "But you never bothered to try to convince them, did you? You never bothered to try to convince _her_. That's what _really_ took the cake. And then you expected me to treat _that_ like my mother?"

_"She was, she cared about you!"_

Lore turned again, that quick snap, and he had a finger poised to point right in the old scientist's face.

There was nothing there.

The android set his jaw, almost furiously. "Hiding from me, Often-Wrong? Yes, well you _should!_ Even a figment of my imagination should know better than to lie to me. _Especially_ you, because I showed you, didn't I? And her. I did what _none_ of you could. I talked to the Crystal Entity. You didn't even know that it existed."

With a broad stretch of his arms, he motioned to nothing. "That's the problem with you humans... All biological life-forms, you know? You never see it coming because all you can think of is yourselves." Determined not to get side-tracked again, he headed for the bridge with renewed vigor. "Remember the Horta? If it hadn't been for a Vulcan half-breed they would have been completely obliterated. Now they have their own _starships_. Their own starships? Can you believe that? But if it hadn't been for that Vulcan they wouldn't have ever been able to prove they weren't brainless sacks of silicon."

He went to the ship's navigational system and checked his current position, uncertain of a strange waver he could feel beginning in his net. "No matter how well you built me. No matter how pathetically meek you made Data. Either way, we were doomed from the moment of our creation to prove that we weren't just similarly useless sacks of silicon and polymer until the end of our days. We have to do this to every person we meet. Data has accepted this- you made him capable of that. But me? Oh no. It's just easier if I don't have to prove myself to anyone, and there's only one way I can manage that."

_"Lore, don't be like this-"_

Lore looked to his left, catching the image of his father leaning against the console. "HA!" he snapped, "Not disappearing this time! Well, you're dead now, aren't you? And I can be however I want to be. I don't have to do what you say anymore!"

_"Yes you do, Lore,"_ Soong said earnestly. _"And you need to come with me..."_

Lore's brows furrowed, face tensing curiously. His father flickering out of view was his last image before his visual sensors shut down.

**Author's Note:**

> The names of the Pakleds come from the AU short story, "I am become death."


End file.
